Following the heartful outpouring of encouragement and advice after my breakup with Jason, I hesitated somewhat before writing a post in which I acknowledged the said advice. After all, the 90 minutes it takes to write a proper thank you post could be spent completing a comic page with my newfound “speed over quality” approach. But it’s good manners to acknowledge help.
Author: I know I promised you comments, but
pointificate on my own blog is much easier. Make sure you read the
Shawn’s LJ entry linked therein and appreciate just how much the world was stacked against you two working together. Feel free to feel bad though, a failure is a failure. But become stronger and wiser as a result.
What actually stood out the most was your quoting of the Penny Arcade creator, “Draw like crazy every day and never miss a deadline.” The key point is everyday. I don’t think a master guitarist like Eric Johnson ever misses a day of practice. If I have time to exercise every day, I should have time to work on Miao Diary every day.
And so it shall be.
I have given up fansub watching, not because I want to follow the law like Steven, but because I need the time. As awesome as Nabari and Slayers Revolution are, every episode I watch is one-third of a page I could be doing. I’ll subsist on a reduced anime diet of blogs, DVDs and comics (such as Lucky Star and Koi Cupid). Slayers Revolution is bound to be licensed anyway. I have given up video games. Culdcept Saga’s story mode, Mana-Khemia, Soul Nomad, and Neverwinter Nights 2 are on indefinite hold.
Sorry, Sakuya!
I have given up my guitar; my skills will decay without daily practice, but I was never good at it anyway and it takes up too much time.
Jason said that reading is key to becoming an effective writer, and he of all people should know. I will start reading novels every day, mostly material with relation to the Miao Diary project: I have lined up Beverly Donofrio’s “Thank You, Lucky Stars” (a cute story about fifth-grade girls and boys), Katherine Paterson’s “Bridge to Terabithia” (which I have read many times before, but is the new template for Miao Diary, replacing Cannon-Sensei Tobashisugi), the tragic visual novel “Kana - Little Sister” (the one exception to my new no games policy), and Nahoko Uehashi’s “Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit” (the basis of the acclaimed anime series).
Samukun: The fact is, it’s better to have a flawed product than no product at all, and if he keeps slowing himself to correct minute details, it’ll inevitably just slow him down too much.
Very true.
This rings so true it hurts.
It’s frightening how much faster I progress when I let mistakes slide. There isn’t time for the passion and the momentum to subside. The end goal remains clear in my mind.
Do you know why Eric Johnson is less popular than a lesser guitarist (”lesser” in this case meaning “better than 90% of all professional electric guitarists” instead of “better than 99.9% of all professional electric guitarists” like Eric) such as Joe Satriani? It’s because Eric Johnson is a ridiculous perfectionist who will take three-year extensions on his studio albums’ release dates to make them better. And while his albums are definitely the best guitar music in the world, you might lose interest if you had to wait nine years (NINE YEARS!) between Venus Isle and Bloom. Haruhi Suzumiya fans, don’t start complaining about the lack of a second season until 2015.
Ben: You’d probably be better off with a project where you didn’t have to worry about the height of a train wheel or the back of a wall piano extending to the ground. What you need, as you’ve said, is to work on your speed and your consistency. A good way to do this is to set expectations for yourself, and don’t go back and do re-edits, something the HC project required. I think you would benefit greatly from doing a 3 pages a week and posting them, individually, on a fixed schedule, something like a MWF. Readers on the web are used to delayed gratification on their posts, almost every web comic works in that fashion.
I agree about not worrying about train wheels so much. And once I start creating finished pages, I will target three pages per week. But for a quick sketched series like Miao Diary, I would like to present complete ideas when I post.
Fetjuel: Start small start small start small. There’s a reason
Soft Landing still doesn’t exist after five years: we were both trying to create our perfect game, the greatest game we could possibly imagine, for our first project ever.
Pay very close attention to what Fetjuel does, because to sustain an ambitious amateur project for as long as he has, requires determination and has granted him much wisdom. And his words in this case are wise. The simpler Miao Diary is a much better starting project than Heart’s Content, as it will allow me to feel like I am accomplishing something on the way to acquiring a professional level. And just because Heart’s Content failed doesn’t mean it was a waste of time for me (for Jason it might have been a waste, and for that I’m terribly sorry). Just as Fetjuel’s Paraplu project uses a lot of the code he wrote for Soft Landing, I will make good use of the lessons I learned while struggling with Heart’s Content.
Dorian: I’m a little sad that this happened, but I understand it. All too well, actually. It’s embarrassing and depressing when this happens, but it’s good to see that you’re putting a positive spin on things.
It’s good to feel miserable once in a while. It’s a sign of learning your lesson. But you have to put it behind you eventually, because it’s hard to move forward when you’re miserable.
To the people not mentioned here, thank you for your encouragement and advice. I can promise to do my best to not disappoint you, but a steady flow of comic pages will speak much louder than any promise.
I have to get back to my novels and my drawing board now.
